


Eternal

by QueenPunk



Category: Samurai Champloo
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Romance, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 20:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14244678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenPunk/pseuds/QueenPunk
Summary: Mugen had the eyes of someone who would die young.





	Eternal

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble I started writing at two in the morning. Please don't take this too seriously, I was having a writers block and writing this helped get through it a little bit.

Mugen had the eyes of someone who would die young. He had the eyes of someone who was too ancient to last, too feral to not rip into his own throat. Mugen had the eyes of someone who would never die--as eternal as the steel of his blade, rusted and dulled but not broken. Never broken.

Fuu believed that as they turned their backs to each other, he would disappear forever. 

Forever young. Forever ancient. Forever dead. Forever alive. 

An enigma. A contradiction. Fuu didn't dare try to understand him. 

She served in a new tea shop. She would hear tales of a skilled swordsman with the moves of a dancer and the violence of a wild wolf. 

Tantos were tucked into her sleeves, where Momo used to rest. The squirrel was buried under a sunflower patch that she tended. She would often find herself reaching underneath her clothes, expecting the warm flutter of her friend’s body, only to find cold metal and the thin skin of her wrists.

Her hair grew long, flyaway strands that would catch in the wind and fall out of her bun. She cut it to a more manageable length, the ends tickling the point of her chin. 

Sometimes she wondered if they would recognize her. Her pink kimono had succumbed to time. She wore a blue one now, pieces of the old one sewn into patterns along the hem.

Sometimes she saw Jin in the reflection of the water as she washed her hair. A flash of light against the dark surface bringing up the image of glasses being tilted and black hair tied tightly back.

Sometimes she heard Mugen in the screeches of stray cats either making love or making war. She saw him in the rotting corpses of slayed infected livestock, in the drunken smiles of men wandering out of brothels, women with coy eyes counting their change. 

At night, instead of imagining monsters in the shadows, Fuu liked to think her old companions were still dragging their feet behind her. She would have to stop herself from turning and biting their heads off for slowing her down. But, she was alone and not as insane as she would like herself to believe. 

The town she had settled was bustling in the center and quiet along the edges. Her shack was old and falling apart and had one room but she had her garden and a shallow pond nearby and a small table and a bed. 

Fuu didn't have visitors, she didn't like people knowing where she let her guard down. Her neighbors--farmers with entire broods of children--kindly gave her a few crops as gifts while trying to tempt her into marriage with their sons. She always accepted the food and politely declined the proposals. They never gave up, though.

Little girls in town would gather around the tea shop, waiting for Fuu’s breaks. When coaxed out right, she would tell them stories of her exploits. Of course, she was kidnapped and put in brothels never within her version of events. Mugen and Jin became more like pets willing to do her bidding as well, but what they didn't know wouldn't kill them. 

She liked seeing the girls’ eyes light up with wonder of the romanticism she put in it. A woman at the helm of her own adventure. Occasionally, she would get quiet in the middle of a tale. She would remember what really happened. 

The pallor of corpses. 

The clawed grip of hunger ripping her insides apart.

The feeling of strangers’ rough hands holding her too tight. 

Low lit rooms that she was unsure she would get out of. 

A red jacket.

The smell of blood. 

The girls would have to bring her back, a small hand on her arm. The sound of calm breathing. Then, she could remember to put air into her own screaming lungs. To stop grasping the handle of one of her blades. She would smile and shake it off, diving back into her reinvention and making it true.

She thought she saw Jin once. She was at the market and saw a man with long black hair walking closely next to a woman with a baby tied to her back. They disappeared into the crowd before she could even call out his name. 

It probably wasn't him. The man wasn't carrying a sword.

Fuu imagined that Jin would always carry one. Just in case he and Mugen ever had that rematch to the death.

She did see Mugen. 

The town was burning. Her home disappeared in a haze of heat and a mirage of smoke. Men with guns and swords swarmed, killing whatever they could see. 

She stumbled over bodies. 

Plunged a blade into the hand of a man that almost caught her. Then she slit his throat. 

She told the girls where her shack was. Told them to hide there. Run in the dead of night to the next town. 

They cornered her in an alley because she was better than she used to be but she wasn't as good as she tricked herself into believing. 

She had always been as stubborn as a mule. But, she wasn't a fighter and no one was there to save her. 

She would not be their victim.

Not again.

The tanto didn't hurt when she stabbed it into her stomach. 

Smoke was in her lungs.

Blood pooling down her blade’s handle, sticking to her hands.

Drifting embers branded her skin and caught light on the cloth of her kimono.

She wasn't eternal the way Mugen was. She would die in the dirt like the damsel she always pretended she wasn't. 

There were screams all around her. The stars couldn't be seen past the lapping flames against the grey sky.

She turned her head to the side unbiddingly. She felt like a puppet that had its ropes severed.

The gleam of silver she saw first.

Bodies were littered at his feet.

He looked exactly the same.

Savage eyes.

Wild hair.

“You finally showed up,” she tried to say, blood pooling from her lips. Last minute as always when she was in danger. Always by accident but always there. 

Mugen grunted, crouched down next to her. He pulled her hands away from their tight hold on her blade. Her fingers fell simply, the warmth of his hands hotter than any flame. She had forgotten about that.

He didn’t yank the blade out of her. He was saying something. She watched the movement of his mouth, sharp white teeth. He was probably berating her for getting into this mess. She had missed that.

It made sense that he would outlive her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are much appreciated and keep me writing!


End file.
